Personalized Rally Towels

Instructional Time

40-Minute Sessions for 2 days

Hardware:

• Vinyl cutter
• Heat Press
• Heat transfer vinyl – https://www.uscutter.com/Siser-EasyWeed-Heat-Transfer-Vinyl
• Blank cotton rally towels – https://www.amazon.com/Set-Affordable-Cheap-Rally-Towels/dp/B0163BQHRO?th=1

Software:

• Vector/Raster graphics software (e.g. CorelDraw, Inkscape or similar)

Mental Health Component – Michelle Voithofer, UI1 Social Worker

Vinyl sticker designs as student creative expressions of Gratitude and Act of Kindness. Students share the Rally Towels, giving completed project towels as keepsakes or gifts as memorials for family & friends, birth of child or sibling, or other significant life events.

Goals:

• Students discuss and learn the meaning of gratitude and the importance of expressing gratitude.
• Students learn to identify objects, persons, experiences for which they are grateful.
• Students learn that by sharing acts of kindness increases their awareness of their life experiences, objects and people for which they are grateful, and that by sharing what they have created increases a positive self- concept.

Student begin with mindful breathing exercise “Take 5” quieting and relaxing their minds and bodies with breath counting. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DSgOW879jjA with visual,

Or https://soundcloud.com/search?q=take%205%20breathing without visual demonstration.

Center for Healthy Minds Innovations research suggest that mindfulness, as measured through breath counting, is associated with more self-awareness, less mind wandering and better emotional state. “Creating space to come down from the worried mind, and get back into the present moment has been shown to be enormously helpful in mitigating the negative effects of our stress response,” Elisha Goldstein writes in Mindful magazine. “When we drop into the present, we’re more likely to gain perspective and see that we have the power to regulate our response to pressure.” The beginning breath exercise functions to help students focus introspectively, calming both body and mind.

Gratitude – feelings of thankfulness when you look at, or think of, an object, person, or situation you have experienced. Simply focusing for a minute on what you are grateful for shifts your thinking to a positive perspective or mindset, that produces a feeling of quiet joy or comfort in your body. Although students can find it difficult to name what they are thankful for, learning practices of expressing gratitude are important for changing neural wiring and changing negative mindsets. Students are taught this practice of gratitude enables all of us to let go of hurtful or negative emotions, such as resentment and jealousy, and to replace those thoughts with thoughts of gratitude, positively changing brain neural circuitry and perspective.

Gratitude Exercise: Instruct students to begin by thinking of people, situations, things they are grateful for today. Ask students to choose 2 ideas to share out with class. Use whiteboard to write collection of shared ideas. State that this sharing of ideas increases our commonality and forges social connections among peers. Donald Hebb, influential Canadian psychologist who introduced brain- based neuropsychology theory said, “neurons that fire together wire together.” Introduce students to the idea that thinking gratitude thoughts and performing acts of kindness will fire neurons in the brain that will remember gratitude feelings and the brain will want to repeat that behavior.

Researcher Glenn Fox, Ph.D. reports in Greater Good Magazine that practices of gratitude change neural responses in different areas of the brain responsible for emotions of happiness and empathy.

https://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/what_can_the_brain_reveal_about_gratitude

Audio Guided Mindfulness: Students listen to compassion exercise from Healthy Minds Innovations Center for Healthy Minds. https://centerhealthyminds.org/assets/files-resources/compassion2eC.mp3

Performing Acts of Kindness: Acting in thoughtful ways – such as sharing, listening, helping – that benefits others and how you perceive yourself. Sharing kindness is formative in making and keeping friends by strengthening social relationships. And students learn from the neural feedback they receive in kinder thoughts and feelings, that being kind to someone else you are also being kind to yourself.

Rally Towel Group Reflection: Gratitude thoughts and acts of kindness reflected in vinyl design choice and completed towel designs as memorial or keepsakes are shared out in group discussion. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lrHJYeAVoKU

Students are encouraged to keep practicing thoughts of gratitude and to share acts of kindness beyond their FabLab project completion as a life choice.

National Standards for Technological Literacy

• STL1.3-5.D – Tools, materials, and skills are used to make things and carryout tasks.
• STL2.3-5.I – Tools are used to design, make, use, and assess technology.
• STL2.3-5.K – Tools and machines extend human capabilities, such as holding, lifting, carrying, fastening, separating and computing.
• STL2.3-5.L – Requirements are the limits to designing or making a product or system.
• STL6.3-5.B – Because people’s needs and wants change, new technologies are developed and old one are improved to meet those changes.
• STL8.3-5.C – The design process is a purposeful method of planning practical solutions to problems.
• STL8.3-5.D – Requirements for a design include such factors as the desired elements and features of a product or system or the limits that are placed on the design.